Madeleine Albright: 2018 National Book Festival

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[ Applause ] >> Madeleine Albright: Very nice. [ Applause ] >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. [ Applause ] You ever thought of running? >> Good afternoon. On behalf of the Library of Congress, it's my privilege to introduce one of the nation's leading philanthropists, a tireless advocate for reading and literacy, and the co-chairman of the National Book Festival, David Rubenstein. >> David M. Rubenstein: Thank you. So I guess -- so, thank you. So I can call you Madeleine. We worked together in the White House many, many years ago. So Madeleine, you just came from the funeral service for Senator McCain. Could you talk a little bit about that and your relationship with him? >> Madeleine Albright: Yes. Well, first of all, I'm delighted to be here and delighted to be with you, David. We have known each other for -- >> David M. Rubenstein: A while. >> Madeleine Albright: -- many years, before you were who you are and were settled. >> David M. Rubenstein: My hair was dark then, but -- >> Madeleine Albright: But it was really a very moving service, because it had so many of the themes that Senator McCain has really been identified with in terms of service to country, both in a military way and also a civilian, and his time, and the tributes really spoke to that. It was incredibly well-planned, but what was so fascinating was that obviously Senator McCain planned all this, but he had asked President W. Bush and President Obama to be the speakers, two people who defeated him, and they made comments about the fact, isn't it interesting that they were asked, and they talked about what that meant, and it just was a very, very moving service in so many different ways, and the music, and everybody cried to "Danny Boy" when Renee Fleming sang it, and so many different things. My relationship with Senator McCain was one that was based on not just our friendship but our value system. He has been -- first of all, I'm chairman of the board of an organization called the National Democratic Institute, and he's chairman of the National Republican Institute, and what happened was these are organizations that were started by Ronald Reagan. In the early 80s, he had gone to speak in England at the Parliament and said that democracies were not real good about defending themselves or explaining themselves vis a vis communism, so he came back and started the Endowment for Democracy with these two organizations. So the first time that Senator McCain and I did something together actually was in June of 1990. I was born in Czechoslovakia, and it was right after the Velvet Revolution, and it was the first elections that were held, and we were there as election observers, and really, it was my -- so much fun was the main word, in terms of showing a great senator my hometown of Prague, and Paul Simon sang, and I took him -- I took Senator McCain on Madeleine's tour of Prague, but basically, we then discovered how much we both cared about supporting democracy -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- in countries that had been under totalitarianism, and that was something that really was our major source of working together. >> David M. Rubenstein: So were you -- have you been surprised at the enormous outpouring of sorrow at his passing, or are you not surprised at it? >> Madeleine Albright: Both, frankly, because knowing him and knowing what a role he played, I'm not surprised. What I am surprised is how it has turned into something much larger, and I think that that is what came through at the funeral also -- is that what Senator McCain was representing was what many of us have thought is the best of America, which are people that understand -- [ Applause ] -- the importance of service, the importance of serving with honor, the importance of caring about what people think, the importance of our diversity and America's value system and America's role in the world, and so all those things have been reflected in his life, but also in a lot of the celebrations -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- and I think it was really strong, obviously, at the funeral, but I think it is larger than I expected. I expected a lot of honor to a senator with that kind of a record, but this has now, I think, taken off in a much larger way. >> David M. Rubenstein: So I notice you've written a book about pins that you wore when you were secretary of state, and -- >> Madeleine Albright: Yeah. >> David M. Rubenstein: -- I notice you're wearing one now. What does that pin symbolize? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, this is obviously the American eagle, and I wanted to wear something patriotic for the funeral. I debated about an anchor because of his Navy service, but then I decided that it was larger than just -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- his Navy service, so this is my most vibrant eagle. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: But I was going to -- what I have been doing, and I decided not to do it today -- when I've been talking about my books, I've been wearing a pin, and it's mercury, because I'm trying to deliver a message about fascism. So you know, today it -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- seemed more appropriate to wear the eagle. >> David M. Rubenstein: Well, we're going to -- let's go on. Let's talk about fascism, and you've written a new book on fascism. Why did you decide to write a book about fascism? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, a number of different reasons. First of all, I think that I felt that it is a term that is just being thrown around without people understanding what it is. Anybody we disagree with is a fascist. Then the teenage boy who's not allowed to drive the car calls his father a fascist, and I was trying to figure out how one defines something that is raising its head more and more internationally and really trying to explain what fascism is, and the reason that I wanted to write it is frankly because of my own story. I was born in Czechoslovakia in 1937, and as a result of agreements made in Munich in 1938 by the British and French with the Germans and Italians, the country I was born in was sold down the river, and in March '39, the Nazis marched in and fascism took over that country. My father was a Czechoslovak diplomat, and we spent the war in England because he with the government in exile, but I could see what fascism had done to Europe, and I wanted to write about it from a personal perspective as well as from a warning, because there are things going on around the world where there are elements of fascism that I think people need to understand what it's about, and it's not just an epitaph to be thrown around. >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. Well, let's go through this. In your book, you talk about the person who actually first used the phrase fascism. That actually was Mussolini, Benito Mussolini. Where did he get the phrase fascism? >> Madeleine Albright: Yes. >> David M. Rubenstein: What does that mean? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, first of all, I decided that what I wanted to do about the book was to put it into historical context so that people could really understand what it's about, and Mussolini was the first fascist, and it really came from a term of elm rods, which are kind of sticks, and an axe, which had been an emblem that the Romans had used, and these elm rods are called fasces, and so this group of people around Mussolini took it as their emblem, and it's the toughness and going back to Caesar. >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. Now as you point out in your book, Mussolini came along before Hitler, and Mussolini was a politician, but not all that successful initially. He had some problems. Didn't come from a wealthy family, particularly. How did he rise up to get to the point where he could rule Italy? Did he win an election that got him to be the head of Italy? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, let me go back a little bit on this, because I think that one of the things that I wanted to look at was what is the environment that produces fascism, and without sounding like a professor, which I am, is that really, the historical context is that there certainly have been a lot of disruptions in society, some in the late 19th century, early 20th century, due to the Industrial Revolution and people being displaced in their jobs, and then kind of a sense of division in societies, the haves and have-nots, was arising in a number of different countries, and then World War One also had a real input into all of that, and Italy particularly. You know, we all make fun of Italians, Italian governments, for a long time, because they've had so many different prime ministers and party messes. They had it all along, and Italy throughout the early 20th century had a lot of different governments, and then what happened was they had actually -- -- fought on the side of the Allies during World War One, but had not really benefitted from it in any way in terms of having alliances or being treated with respect, and so Mussolini was somebody that came from a poor family, who was somebody that, from everything that I read, more and more about him, actually very charismatic and charming, but he was an outsider, and all of a sudden, he in many ways fit in to try to resolve the situation of all these divisions that were taking place in Italy. In Italy, he initially was a leftist, and they were trying to figure out how to deal with their various social problems, and he got a group of people around him that became more and more politicized, and he identified with them as an outsider to be able to bring some kind of order to things, and so this group of people surrounded him, and he was, as I said, very charismatic. This is the part that blew my mind, frankly. He came to power constitutionally, because what happened was King Emmanuel of Italy felt that the coalition governments there were not working together well enough, that they needed to solve some of the problems that were coming out of World War One, and he asked Mussolini to take over the government, and so that's the part. He didn't seize power in that particular way, but he was so interesting, David, because he did say he needed to drain the swamp in Italian. He's the first one who said that. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. He said it in Italian, though, right? >> Madeleine Albright: He said it in Italian. In a lot of the things I read, he thought he had all the answers to everything, that he was a stable genius, and -- [ Applause ] >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. So what year did he actually take over? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, he took over kind of like in the early 30s. >> David M. Rubenstein: Thirties, right. >> Madeleine Albright: Early 30s. >> David M. Rubenstein: So actually, when he was running the government for a while, did he do things that made him more popular than he had been before he even took office? >> Madeleine Albright: Yes, he did. I mean he organized things well. He did make the trains run on time, but he really did help in terms of some of the stability that people felt was necessary in Italy. He, however, ultimately overdid and did not deliver, and he was hung. >> David M. Rubenstein: Ultimately, he was captured, and what happened to him? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, he was seized, and then they hung him. >> David M. Rubenstein: He and his mistress -- >> Madeleine Albright: Yes. >> David M. Rubenstein: -- were hung up. >> Madeleine Albright: But the best quote in the whole book is from Mussolini, and he said something like "if you pluck a chicken one feather at a time, nobody notices." So in societies where a lot of feather-plucking is going on -- those are two words that are hard to say quickly together -- there often is not a notice -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- of what is going on. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. So ultimately, he met his demise, and let's talk about somebody else who came along a little bit later, Adolph Hitler. How did Hitler rise up to power? Did he win an election by majority vote? >> Madeleine Albright: No, but what is interesting is Hitler succeeds Mussolini, and there was a relation. Initially, from my reading, I found that Hitler admired some of the things that Mussolini had been doing. Hitler came from also a family that was kind of on the outside. He was from parents that were kind of failed civil servants, and he also was somebody that seemed as if he could not get along in the particular society. He tried to be an architect, a number of different aspects. He also then, because Germany was a country after World War One that was "punished," I think for good reason, but with the Versailles Treaty and reparations and not treated with respect, and so there were a lot of problems within Germany itself. They also suffered very much from the Depression, and they had set up a democratic republic called the Weimar Republic, but they were not capable also of dealing with the various issues that were out there, and something similar happened. There was a very reputable and well-known German statesman, von Hindenberg, who all of a sudden -- also, the coalition system wasn't working, and he ultimately asked Hitler to take over by -- the parliament there ultimately agreed to it, and I think that's the part. I mean, one of the great parts about writing a book is the research that one has to do about it and learning a number of things about how Mussolini and Hitler came to power. In fact, just the way you've asked the questions, is there was not a revolution. They were asked by the constitutional head of state, King Emmanuel and von Hindenberg, to take over at a time when the government itself was not able to deal with the divisions -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- and the dislocations and the anger about how people were treated after the end of World War One. >> David M. Rubenstein: But King Victor Emmanuel and von Hindenberg both underestimated Mussolini and Hitler's ability to change the government and to do things that were never anticipated; is that correct? >> Madeleine Albright: Absolutely, and also being able to -- they were obviously different, and I think that what Mussolini was able to do was to kind of use drama and his capability and his charisma to motivate people to follow him. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: And Hitler also used propaganda. There's a long history in terms of the kinds of things that he did, but Hitler added one whole element to all of this, which was finding a group of people that were scapegoats for all of this. How had all this happened in Germany? Whose fault was it? And it was the fault of the Jews, which is where the antisemitic part then leading to the Holocaust was something. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: Nobody can be compared to Hitler, and Hitler took some of the elements that Mussolini had put into place and then added this horrific aspect -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- to it that made it not just fascist but Nazis. >> David M. Rubenstein: Well, let's talk about one other person you write about in your book, Franco, who took over as more or less a dictator in Spain. How did he come to power? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, Spain also was having all kinds of economic issues and problems and agricultural issues and how they dealt with some of the colonies they had, and he was a military person, and he also was kind of asked to take over at a time that things were not working properly for the people, and then what was interesting about Spain that made it a little bit different was the whole Spanish Civil War, in terms of being the theater where the fights between the communists, the left wing and the right wing, took place, and Franco was able also to benefit from all the dislocation that came from that. So I think the thing all these people have in common is they take advantage of a economic situation that is disruptive, that creates a group of haves versus the have-nots. >> David M. Rubenstein: Now after the war, World War Two, is over, your father and your family go back to Czechoslovakia and think you're going to live there now because Hitler is gone. What happened in Czechoslovakia after you got back? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, the thing that -- I think just to add a variety of complications to this, what happened -- Czechoslovakia was a country that was founded after 1918, and as a result of World War One and the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapses, and Czechoslovakia was founded in that way thanks to, as the Czechs pronounce it, Woodrow Wilson and the 14 points. It was a country that was based on national identity, and I have to tell this, because the first president of Czechoslovakia was a man called Tomas Garrigue Masaryk. He had married an American -- her name was Charlotte Garrigue -- and at the end of the 19th century, he took her maiden name as his middle name. Not a lot of men do that. Then also the Czechoslovak constitution was based on the American constitution, with one major difference. It had equal rights language in it in 1918, and so this small country in the middle of Europe was in fact, and I say this with some pride, the only real democracy in central and eastern Europe, but what happened was that even though it was founded on national identity, it had a small German minority in the north, and they were trying to figure out how to deal with them when that minority was energized by a man called Konrad Henlein, who was an apostle of or a disciple of Hitler's. And so what happened was that there were agreements made that the west would defend Czechoslovakia if in fact the Germans took over. The Russians, -- -- or the Soviet Union -- and by the way, Czechoslovakia didn't have a problem with Russians. Not like Poland, where the borders were too close -- and what had happened was that the Russians had promised to come in and help Czechoslovakia if it were invaded if the French lived up to their obligations to do so. The French didn't, and so the Russians had an excuse, -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- and so during the war, when the Nazis had taken over and the government in exile was in London, the Russians, in the meanwhile -- and the communists were really the fighters -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- in Czechoslovakia. So after the war, and too complicated to discuss all of it, but what happened: In the first Czechoslovak elections in 1946, the communists actually won, and so what happened within a -- until February 1948, there was a coalition government, and there were going to be new elections. The Russians were trying to figure out how to take over all of eastern Europe, and they were going to do it by elections in Czechoslovakia. They saw they were going to lose, and so there was a coup. So what happened was my father had come back to Czechoslovakia after the war. He was made ambassador to Yugoslavia. The little girl in the national costume that gives flowers at the airport -- that's what I did for a living, and then he was about to get a new assignment, because he was a professional diplomat, to be Czechoslovakia's representative on a new commission to do with India and Pakistan over cashmere, and he was looking forward to that when the communists took over. He didn't want to work for the communists. His best friends in Belgrade were the British and American ambassadors, and they said, "If your country's just had a coup, if you resign, they'll name some communist and nothing will get done, so why don't you report to us?" and my father agreed to do that, and we came to the United States -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: As a result of that assignment, my father defected and asked for political asylum. >> David M. Rubenstein: Was it hard to get political asylum? Were immigrants welcome then? >> Madeleine Albright: Yes, they were. >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. >> Madeleine Albright: And I do have to say the following thing. My father used to say this on a regular basis. He said when we were in England during the war -- and by the way, I was there all through the Blitz and everything, and so my father said, "The British were very nice. They said, 'We're so sorry your country's been taken over by a terrible dictator. You're welcome here. What can we do to help you and when are you going home?'" When we came to the United States, people said, "We're so sorry your country's been taken over by a terrible system. You're welcome here. What can we do to help you and when will you become a citizen?" >> David M. Rubenstein: Yeah. >> Madeleine Albright: And my father said that's what made America different -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- from every other country. [ Applause ] >> David M. Rubenstein: As a little girl, I assume you spoke Czech. >> Madeleine Albright: I did. >> David M. Rubenstein: And you still speak it? >> Madeleine Albright: I do speak Czech. >> David M. Rubenstein: But your English. You have no non-American accent, so how did you get this American -- >> Madeleine Albright: Oh, well, now let me -- so what happened is I grew up bilingual, and so I spoke Czech and English. Then we went to Yugoslavia when my father was the ambassador, so I certainly could understand -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. >> Madeleine Albright: -- Serbian, and then because I had -- I had a governess because my father didn't want me going to school with communists, so I got ahead of myself. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: And in Europe, you can't go to the next level until you're a certain age, so they decided to send me to Switzerland to learn French. I went to -- I didn't speak any French. They wouldn't feed me unless I asked for it in French, so -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Jeez. >> Madeleine Albright: -- I learned French. So then we came to the United States on November 11th, 1948, and we lived on Long Island, and I went to school, and it was about to be Thanksgiving, and I heard somebody -- you know, we gather together, et cetera -- "osking" [phonetic spelling] for God's blessing, and I thought, "Who's osking?" and I was osking, and from then on, I asked. >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. >> Madeleine Albright: And so I have -- >> David M. Rubenstein: We got it. >> Madeleine Albright: -- an American accent. >> David M. Rubenstein: But your father eventually moved to Denver. He became a professor at the University of Denver. >> Madeleine Albright: Yeah. >> David M. Rubenstein: And he had a prized student who was -- >> Madeleine Albright: Yeah. Well, I have to -- this story is so unbelievable. >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. >> Madeleine Albright: What happened was my father did defect, and he asked for political asylum, and at that stage, the Rockefeller Foundation was finding jobs for central European intellectuals or whatever, so they found him a job at the University of Denver, and we had no idea where Denver was, and my parents bought a car. We started driving across America, and my mother said, "They say Denver's the mile-high city, but we're not going up, so maybe we're going the wrong direction." Anyway, we end up in Denver, and my father starts teaching at the University of Denver, and he became a pretty big deal. He wrote books and was a popular professor. He died in 1977, and there were lots of flowers and tributes, and among them was a ceramic pot in the shape of a piano with just some leaves in it. So I said to my mother, "Where did this come from?" and she said, "It's from your father's favorite student, Condoleezza Rice," so. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: Her parents had an association -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- with the University of Denver. She was a music major, hence the piano, and she had to take an international relations course or distribution -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- or something. She took one from my father, and he persuaded her to become an international relations major. She then went to Notre Dame, where she got her master's, and she was working on her PhD with my father when he died. So this African-American music major from Alabama wrote her dissertation on the Czechoslovak military. >> David M. Rubenstein: Wow. >> Madeleine Albright: So then in 1987, when I was working for my long list of losing democratic presidential candidates, I was working for Michael Dukakis and finding foreign policy advisors. So I didn't know Condi, but I knew she was a Soviet expert women taught on the west coast, so I called her up, and I told her what I was doing, that I was looking for experts, and she said, "Madeleine, I don't know how to tell you this, but I'm a Republican," and I said, "Condi, how could you be? We have the same father." But it is a remarkable story, -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Wow. >> Madeleine Albright: -- that this Czechoslovak refugee diplomat basically trained two secretaries of state. >> David M. Rubenstein: Whatever happened to her? Do you know? >> Madeleine Albright: ?No. We're very good friends. >> David M. Rubenstein: So let's go back to your life story. So you go to Wellesley, graduate, and in those days, when you graduated from Wellesley, most women were not expected to be secretary of state, I assume, right. Probably not. So what did you do? What was your career/ >> Madeleine Albright: Well, let me just say I clearly love foreign policy. We never had any choice at our house talking about anything but history, diplomatic history, or foreign policy. I was going to be a journalist, but the thing that happened was our graduation speaker was Neil McElroy, who was the secretary of defense, because his daughter was in our class, and he gave the commencement speech in which -- we all remember it slightly differently, but it basically was your main duty is to get married and raise children, preferably sons. The fact that we didn't walk out -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: Anyway, so I waited a really long time to get married, two days after graduation. >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. >> Madeleine Albright: And I did want to be a journalist. I'd been one of the editors of my college paper, and my husband, while he was in the Army in Missouri, I worked for a small paper in Missouri, and then we go back to Chicago, where he already had a job, and we're having dinner with his managing editor, who looks at me and says, "So what are you going to do, honey?" I said, "I'm going to work to be journalist," and he said, "I don't think so. You can't work on the same paper as your husband because of labor regulations," and even though there were three other papers in Chicago at the time, he said, "And you wouldn't want to compete with your husband, so go find something else to do." It was, you know, 1960, and I saluted, and I found another job. I went to work for Encyclopedia Britannica, which for the younger people in the audience is a book. >> David M. Rubenstein: It was the Wikipedia of its day. >> Madeleine Albright: Yeah, but what they did that was kind of fun was every year, they would choose a set of articles to review, and that year, they were geographical locations, and being a poli sci, they thought I could choose the illustrations for that. So I did that, and then it used to be newspapers, when they had a little space at the bottom of columns, needed factoids, so I read Encyclopedia Britannica, and I still remember things like ostriches are voiceless, according to encyclopedia. But anyway, then what happened was I was pregnant, and we moved to Long Island, and this was before sonograms and everything, and I got very fat, and the doctors kept saying, "You're fat. Do something," so I drank horrible diet Metrecals and things like that and walked around Long Island a lot, and I saw that somebody was going -- that they were offering a Russian course at Hofstra University, and I thought this will never work, because I have to have the -- yeah, my child will not be born yet. What happened was I was having twins. They were born early. I had to leave them in the hospital in the incubators, so I took Russian, and that is how I kind of got back into studying. >> David M. Rubenstein: Well, you ultimately worked on Capitol Hill for Senator Muskie. >> Madeleine Albright: I did. >> David M. Rubenstein: How did you happen to get that job? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, what happened was that I had -- my whole life is a series of accidents -- -- that actually worked out. So what happened was that I was asked to become chairman of a school here in -- a chairman of the board of a school here in Washington, and they put me in charge of annual giving, and the person that was my parent partner in this knew that I'd raised a lot of money. He was from the state of Maine, and he was asked to put on the biggest fund-raising dinner ever in Washington. It was really, really expensive. You'll love this, David -- $125 a seat. So he asked me to chair it, which I did, and that's how I got to know Ed Muskie, and then I did fund-raising for Ed Muskie, and ultimately, -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- he asked me to come on as staff. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right, so you work on Muskie's staff, and you did that for a while, but ultimately, Jimmy Carter became president of the United States, and Zbig Brzezinski became his national security advisor, and you knew him from Columbia, because you had gotten a degree at Columbia. >> Madeleine Albright: Yeah. He was my professor, yes. >> David M. Rubenstein: So he asked you to come on the White House staff and serve as the congressional liaison for the national security staff. >> Madeleine Albright: Yeah. >> David M. Rubenstein: But why would the national security staff need a congressional liaison? >> Madeleine Albright: It's all your fault. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: Yeah. So the thing that happened -- Brzezinski had been my professor, and he calls me in January whatever, '80. >> David M. Rubenstein: '77. >> Madeleine Albright: '77, and he said, "Madeleine, perhaps you've heard I've been named national security advisor," and I said, "Yes, I have," and he said, "Well, can you find me a place to live?" and said, "Jeez, Big, I thought you were calling to offer me a job," and he said, "No, I'm calling to ask you to find me a place to live," which I did, and then two years later, we had become really good friends, and he asked me to come and be a congressional relations person. So thing that happened -- I loved Ed Muskie, and I loved everything about him, but he wasn't very modern in his language or his comprehension of certain things. So I said I had this job offer, and he said, "Madeleine, you know, a woman can't do congressional relations," which I thought was very disappointing. Anyway, I went to do congressional relations, and I do have to tell this story. Muskie was clearly embarrassed, and we then have a huge going away party he gives for me, and he says, "I'm looking out at my staff now, and I see that I have a lot of women on my staff, but Madeleine was special because she was the first one to give sex to the office," and I said, "Gender, gender." [ Laughter and Applause ] >> David M. Rubenstein: Well, so. >> Madeleine Albright: But I do want to say what happened, actually, -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. >> Madeleine Albright: -- is that the NSC is not supposed to have a congressional relations person, and as you know, the White House has a whole congressional group to it, and one of the things that was going on was the whole issue about the Panama Canal and also a Middle East arms sale, and Brzezinski felt that some of the White House congressional people were not tuned enough into the national security aspects of it, and so he asked me to come on, and it was a fantastic job. I loved it. I sat in on everyone meeting that President Carter had with members of Congress, and I loved it, and I worked on all kinds of issues. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: And I was known as somebody who knew less about more subjects than anybody else in the government. >> David M. Rubenstein: Oh. >> Madeleine Albright: You know, so I loved it. >> David M. Rubenstein: So now in those days, it was pretty well known that Zbig Brzezinski, the national security advisor, and the secretary of state, Certainly Vance, didn't get along, particularly in terms of their philosophy. Then Vance resigned after the failed hostage rescue effort, and the next secretary of state was a man named Edmund Muskie. >> Madeleine Albright: Right. >> David M. Rubenstein: So you have your former boss as secretary, your current boss as national security advisor. They maybe didn't get along so well, so what was that job like then? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, I have to tell you. It was very interesting, because I really had stayed very, very good friends with Muskie and was close to Brzezinski. So this really did happen. Muskie calls me up, and he says, "Your boss is just such a show-off. It's so awful. Every time we're in the Oval Office, he tells President Carter the name of every tribe in Nigeria," and I said, "He's a professor. That's what they do." So then what happened was Brzezinski called me up, and he said, "Your former boss is impossible in principles meetings. All he does is ask questions," and I said, "He's a senator. That's what they do." But something that I could not get over was Muskie finally calls me and he says, "I have had it. Your boss acts as if he's more Polish than I am." I said, "He is. He has two Polish parents. He speaks Polish. You do not," and I thought I could never have dealt with a second term, ever. >> David M. Rubenstein: Well, you had those two bosses that didn't get along, but there was a third person who was your boss, and at that point, Jimmy Carter was seeking to get the nomination of the party again, -- >> Madeleine Albright: Yeah. >> David M. Rubenstein: -- 1980, and Ed Muskie as secretary of state is maybe flirting with the idea that he might get the nomination. Wasn't that kind of complicated? >> Madeleine Albright: No, but the truth is that Ed Muskie wasn't. It's just that you and the Carter people -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Oh. >> Madeleine Albright: -- were suspicious of that, because the thing that was very interesting was -- I will never forget. I have to add one other part to this. I had decided that my job, going to the White House, they had never taken Muskie very seriously when I went there initially, and I wanted everybody to know what a really loyal, good Democrat, and head of the budget committee and the whole Panama Canal thing, and I talked him up an awful lot. So one time, we needed to have a co-del go to China. >> David M. Rubenstein: Co-del being a congressional delegation? >> Madeleine Albright: A congressional delegation to China, and Frank Moore, who was in charge of the whole congressional aspect, went along, and Brzezinski asked me to go on the trip, and so it was great, and Frank got to know Ed Muskie. Anyway, we were then giving a birthday party for Ed Muskie, and all of a sudden, Frank says, "Guess what? President Carter's coming to this birthday party," and I thought only of myself, which was, "Everybody in the Muskie office thinks I went to the White House to have a really important job, and President Carter's going to come in, and he won't recognize me." So anyway, he does come in, he does recognize me, and that all went to my head, and so I said, "Mr. President, can we have a picture of you and me and Senator Muskie?" He said sure, so we're standing there, and President Carter actually said to Ed Muskie, "If Madeleine loves me half as much as she loves you, I'm glad she's working for me." So then what happens is when Muskie's announced as secretary of state, we're in the cabinet room, and I'm sitting in the back, and President Carter comes over to me, and he said, "Are you pleased?" and I said, "Very pleased," and I said, "Perhaps you don't remember where I came from," and he said, "Of course I do. Don't you remember the birthday party?" But the bottom line was, we were all in the cabinet room, and Ed Muskie was in the press room already beginning to talk, and you could see the Carter people getting slightly nervous about that he had different skills, and people did think that he was, but I think he was not -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Wasn't? Okay. >> Madeleine Albright: -- trying to run. >> David M. Rubenstein: So we lost the election in 1980. You had to go back and get a different living. You became a professor at Georgetown. You got involved with a few campaigns that didn't make it. >> Madeleine Albright: Yeah. >> David M. Rubenstein: And then Bill Clinton gets elected in 1992, and were you close to Bill Clinton? >> Madeleine Albright: The interesting part was I didn't know Bill Clinton until, well, he was governor of Arkansas and he came up to Boston to help prepare Michael Dukakis for the debates, and we then kind of sat around for a while, and I discovered about his Georgetown -- he had been a Georgetown student, and I kind of got to know him. The only campaign I never worked in was Bill Clinton's, because at that time, I was also president of the Center for National Policy, which was a 501(c)(3), and Bill Clinton had his brain trust, and I didn't, but what happened was, and this is the story of life, is one of my students, Nancy Soderbergh, was doing the transition. She put my name in with a bunch of other names of people that could in fact be in the administration. I have the memo. He checked my name off, and then Sandy Berger, who had been a very good friend, asked me to run the transition for the Clintons with the National Security Council. >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. >> Madeleine Albright: So I was the first Clinton person to actually go back to the White House, and then he asked me to be ambassador to the United Nations. >> David M. Rubenstein: So you became the ambassador to the UN. There had been a woman who had had that position before. >> Madeleine Albright: Jean Kirkpatrick. >> David M. Rubenstein: Jean Kirkpatrick, but no woman had ever been secretary of state. When Clinton is reelected, Warren Christopher says I'm going to step down as secretary of state. So were you number-one choice? Were you number-two choice? How did you get that position? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, first of all, one of the things that does happen when you're ambassador at the UN -- I was a cabinet member as well as on the principles committee, and I also was on TV some, and also, President Clinton was fantastic in terms of the meetings that we had in the Oval or the cabinet room, and he always was interested in what I was doing. So all of a sudden, because Christopher had said he wasn't going to stay, the moment -- -- of the great mentioning went on, and my name was on a list, and so somebody said well, a woman couldn't be secretary of state because Arabs wouldn't deal with a woman, but the Arab ambassadors at the UN kind of got together and said well, we've had no problems dealing with Ambassador Albright. We wouldn't have problems dealing with Secretary Albright. So that went away, and then somebody at the White House, and I never want to know who, said yes, Madeleine's on the list, but she's second-tier, so I truly did not expect it. So what happens is I'm up in New York on December 5th and I get a call from Erskine Bowles saying if the president of the United States -- >> David M. Rubenstein: He was the chief of staff? >> Madeleine Albright: Chief of staff. He said if the president of the United States were to call you tomorrow, would you take the call? >> David M. Rubenstein: Yes. You said what time? >> Madeleine Albright: Yeah. Oh, yeah, and then he said if the president of the United States were to ask you to be secretary of state, would you say yes? So I obviously said yes. He said well, go back to Washington. The president will call you in the morning. So I was so freaked out that I asked Elaine Shocas, who was my chief of staff, to stay with me, and then I forgot I was dealing with President Clinton, that the phone call wouldn't come early, but I'm sitting there in my pink bathrobe. You know, no phone call, no phone call. So finally, around 9:30, quarter until 10:00, the phone rings, and it's the White House operator saying hold for the president of the United States, and then they put on some horrible music, and I was sure he had changed his mind, but he hadn't. >> David M. Rubenstein: He hadn't, so you got the job. >> Madeleine Albright: And so I became secretary of state. >> David M. Rubenstein: And as secretary of state for four years, what was the highlight in your view of what you did? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, first of all, I loved the job. I really and in every way, and the people that I worked with and every part of it, and I think the highlight was being able to make a difference in terms of how America used its power, and one of the issues that we were very, very concerned with was what was happening in the Balkans, and the weirdest part of my life is that I actually -- just to go back, my father had been ambassador there. I understand Serbian. I had been around all these places, and all of a sudden, I'm dealing with a part of the world that I really understood very deeply, and to tie it to what happened today, I just saw Senator Dole, and he is also one of the people, and at that stage, Senator Biden, that had really cared about what we were doing in the Balkans. And so when people ask me what I'm really proudest of, I thought it took us too long to do Bosnia, but I was secretary when Kosovo happened, and we were able to make a difference. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: And I think that being able to understand what the US can do in cooperation with others -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- makes a huge difference. That's why I'm so upset about the way that this -- and again, to go back to the funeral today, and I think I do have this in common with Senator McCain -- is understanding what this country is about and what our role in the world can and should be and how in partnership with others, American involvement can make a difference for most people in the world. >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. So in your -- [ Applause ] In your book -- in your book, you talk about people that, if not fascists, are totalitarian leaders now. Let's go through some of them that you've dealt with. Why don't we start with North Korea? You were, I think, the first US secretary of state to go to North Korea, and you met with Kim Jong-Il, -- >> Madeleine Albright: -Il. >> David M. Rubenstein: -- who was the father of Kim Jong-Un, and what was that experience like? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, first of all, let me say that a Korean problem, it's been going since the end of World War Two, and there is no peace treaty after that was. I don't know. I think you've been to the demilitarized zone, and people here have. It's the weirdest place in the world, on the 38th parallel dividing the two Koreas, and the Clinton administration, there were issues about Korea from the very beginning. They were signatories of the non-proliferation treaty. They were threatening to pull out. We made a number of different agreements with them. They didn't live up to parts of them. We didn't deliver some of the things we were supposed to quickly enough. So in the summer of 2000, there began to be an interest. President Clinton had gotten very interested in what was going on. He'd actually asked former secretary of defense Bill Perry to do a total review of our North Korea policy, and Bill Perry had gone there first and said this is kind of fork-in-the-road time. You can either negotiate or we will use force against you, because they were threatening with their ballistic missiles, and they chose the negotiating. So the number-two guy, Vice Marshall Cho, came over, and we went over to the Oval Office, and just as what happened recently, Vice Marshall Cho gave an invitation to President Clinton to come to North Korea, and President Clinton said well, maybe at some point, but this has to be prepared, so I'm going to send the secretary of state. They weren't real thrilled about that. Because we don't have an embassy there, I had no idea what was going to happen, but I ended up having -- and by the way, we had a -- our intelligence was very, very limited on North Korea. We were told that Kim Jong-Il was crazy and a pervert. He was not crazy. [ Laughter and Applause ] And we were able to have -- and I didn't know what I was going to do there. So I get there, and all of a sudden, I get a message -- by the way, you stay in a guest house that's completely -- they've got cameras, and they're listening to you, and even if you type on a computer, they can tell by the strokes what you're doing. So we're sitting there, and I get a message that I have to go and pay my respects to his embalmed father, so I go and I do that, and it's more complicated than meets the eye, because if you bow too low, then you're criticized for being obsequious. If you don't bow low enough, you haven't accomplished anything. So I must have had the right angle, -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- because all of a sudden, we get there, and I am called to say that the Dear Leader would have a press conference with me, and I'm standing next to him, and I see that we're the same height, and I had on high heels and so did he, and his hair was poofier than mine, but the bottom line is that we've actually managed to begin discussions -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- about missile limits, and then what happened was the election of 2000, and Americans were confused about the election of 2000. Certainly the North Koreans were. And Colin Powell was prepared to continue what we were doing, and he got -- there was a headline in the Post that said Powell to continue Clinton policies on North Korea. He gets hauled into the Oval and told no way. And so we've had these ups and downs with them, and they're dangerous, and by the way, according to my description of what fascism is, Kim Jong-Un is a fascist. What he has done is use violence and force against his own people. He has obviously disrespected laws or any freedom of the press, and so I am very worried about where this -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- is going. >> David M. Rubenstein: Let's talk about somebody else you've dealt with and you write about, which is Putin. You think he'll be there for life? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, he's planned it that way. I think that the issue there is that -- and again, if I -- one of the things that I did in the '90s was when I was a professor and it was the end of the Cold War, I went and I did a survey across all of Europe about how countries felt after that, including Russia, Ukraine, and Lithuania, and we had very detailed questionnaires, but also focus groups. And something I'll never forget was a focus group that we had outside of Moscow, and this man stands up and says I'm so embarrassed. We used to be a superpower, and now we're Bangladesh with missiles, and there was this kind of sense that they had lost their identity completely. During the Clinton administration, we really did try to figure out how to respect Russia and bring them into the system a number of different ways, but what happened is that Putin identified with that man who felt that Russia had lost its status and all that, and so despite the fact that their economy is not great, he seems to be maintaining power by in fact raising this issue again -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- of Russia's greatness. And so the thing that we can't forget is Putin is a KGB agent, and he has played a weak hand very, very well, and what he is doing is systematically working to separate us from our allies, and part of the story then goes to something I was talking about in my book -- is the other example of somebody that is under his influence is Orban, who is the Hungarian leader, who also has fascist tendencies and the polls, and so he is trying to separate us and undermine our democracy and separate us from our allies. >> David M. Rubenstein: Do you have any doubt that they interfered with our elections? >> Madeleine Albright: I have no doubt about it. >> David M. Rubenstein: And do you think they might be tempted to do it again? >> Madeleine Albright: Yes, I do, which is why I think that we need to be very clear about how we deal with all of this and, if I -- -- can say it this way, separate it as to whether President Trump was elected or not. I mean the bottom line is the Russians are doing something here to undermine us. >> David M. Rubenstein: Well, two other people you write about. I want to cover them quickly before we get to the conclusion. Erdogan of Turkey -- he's become what you might call a dictator, a totalitarian dictator. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but what do you think about him now? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, I think the other thing, and I really do think it's important to go back and look at again the context of how these kinds of leaders become authoritarian and dictatorial, and partially is that there are conditions in these countries that lead to divisions between the haves and the have-nots, and you either have a leader who can try to find common ground or a leader who then exacerbates these divisions. Now what was interesting about Turkey, and I have always kind of seen myself as a Turkophile, a fascinating country that is located in an incredible place -- by the way, I took my grandchildren there several years ago, and my granddaughter, who was nine at the time, said I understand Turkey completely; we spent the night in Europe and had lunch in Asia, and that is definitely -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- a very apt description of Turkey. What had happened was the country had been run by elitists and/or had military coups. Erdogan had actually the first time been elected fair and square because he broadened the constituency so that he was dealing with a lot of people that had been left out and he delivered constituent -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- services. I think, you know, something went to his head in terms of taking overall power, and he has now, I think, the tendencies which are the kind that are the -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- chicken-plucking in terms of really identifying with one group, isolating himself, and then he also -- the international aspect of what the Turks are doing is very dangerous. >> David M. Rubenstein: So you also write about somebody who's not with us any longer, Chavez, but his successor is. >> Madeleine Albright: Yeah. >> David M. Rubenstein: How does Venezuela stay afloat right now, because there's so many problems there? How come the government managed to stay in power, and where does all that oil revenue go? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, I think one of the things again that has to be looked at, back at conditions. I went. When we were in office, I'd go to Caracas fairly frequently. The place was run by a bunch of tired old men that had absolutely no relationship with the indigenous peoples or with the poorer people. What happened was Chavez, who had attempted a coup earlier and was a charismatic figure, all of a sudden takes over. He came to the United States. When President Clinton and I first met with him, he seemed like somebody that cared about his people. He was going to use the oil revenue -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- in order to create a poor people's fund. Then also something went to his head and he becomes this authoritarian dictator. I don't know what happened to the oil revenues. I think that they are -- there's an incredible amount of corruption. Chavez, I think there was a lot of stealing, and then Maduro now -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- has kind of -- and watching the pictures now in terms of the numbers of people emigrating and out into Central America is just -- I mean it's a disaster, no question. >> David M. Rubenstein: So we talked about some of the people that might not be, you know, in your hall of fame for great leaders. Who would you say of the people you dealt with when you were secretary of state, UN ambassador, or since then were the most impressive foreign policy leaders you've ever dealt with? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, I think that I have to say the Germans have been very impressive political leaders, certainly Kohl. What was interesting was I met Angela Merkel when she had just taken the party over and she seemed very quiet and meek, and all of a sudden, she's the chancellor, and I think -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- she is very impressive. I very much enjoyed my -- the people that I worked with were a lot of foreign ministers, and some of them were truly remarkable, and we -- by the way, I invented something really modern when I was secretary of state. It was the international telephone conference call, and so -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- during the war in Kosova, every single day, I spoke to what is known as the quin, the British Robin Cooke, the Germans' Joschka Fischer, the French Hubert Vedrine, the Italian Lamberto Dini and I spoke every single day, and when we left office, all of us, what happened was that I get a call from Robin Cooke, who was also out of the government and had just become head of the European Socialists, and he said Madeleine, they're saying terrible things about the US; do something, and then I got another phone call from another former foreign minister saying you have to do something, and I didn't have any way of doing that, so I needed a group cover, and so it's under the auspice of Aspen. We have just met again. Its official name is the Aspen Ministers Forum. It's unofficial name is Madeline and her exes, and we have now met -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- 20 times, and they are people that understood how the regional and multilateral system worked in partnership, and really, we cared about what was going on in other parts of the world, and so those are some of the most impressive people -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- I ever met, and then there's some that really -- you know, Kim Dae-Jung, who had been the president of South Korea, was very impressive. >> David M. Rubenstein: Now you met with -- I wouldn't say impressive or not impressive. What's your reaction or relationship was to Arafat? You met with Arafat, negotiated with him. What was that like? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, I have to say if I were to look out at this audience, hey, anybody wants to go to Camp David, you'd probably say yes. I can tell you after two weeks in the rain with the Israelis and Palestinians, I don't care if I ever go back. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: But I think that Arafat was -- I got to know him very well, and I won't go through all the stories, but basically, he was somebody that always saw himself as a freedom fighter and not anybody that could kind of -- and he was feted all over the world, and it was certainly more interesting than worrying about the sewer system in Gaza, and I think that while we came very close at Camp David to -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- decisions, I thought he was incapable of making the decision, so. >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. So let's talk about your book the time we have left. In the end of your book, you're trying to draw these various strands together. So the lessons that you want people to take away from all these people that became fascists or ran their country in an authoritarian way is what? What is the danger that you're worried about in your book? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, first of all, let me just say again to this that, to just repeat, societies are divided. There's no question. Now they are divided. By the way, I was going to write this book no matter who had gotten elected, because I really did see that there were divisions, some caused by technological revolution and people losing their jobs and a number of different aspects, and that what was needed was to figure out how the social contract really worked. You know, who did -- what were the responsibilities of the government? What were the responsibilities of the citizens? And so I felt that what needed to be done is to explain how we try to find common ground and not divide up. So the thing that is common to the fascists or those that have -- by the way, I don't call an awful lot of people fascists. I say they are authoritarian dictators with certain tendencies, and the way to describe fascism is it's not an ideology. It's a system for taking over, and the simplest way to describe it, it is when the leader decides to align himself with -- it's a him, always -- with a tribal group, you know, really this particular group against the others, so that it is favoritism of one group and leaving out the others, and then the thing that actually makes somebody a fascist is if you use violence against the people. So it's a bully with an army, but what are the things that I'm looking at are the following or what are the steps that lead to this, which is one, majority rule without minority rights. That is what Viktor Orban calls illiberal democracy, which is kind of real oxymoron. And so there's that. There is no respect for any institutions. There is no respect for the role of the media, which is required in a democracy. There is no sense about how the law works. And so I am calling out what some of the tendencies are, and I think that it's very important, -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- and what the feathers are that are being plucked, and so I am -- some people say my book is alarmist. It is supposed to be alarmist, and so one of the things that I'm doing now is, you know, we have this thing that we say, see something, say something. I have added do something, and I think we have to -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. >> Madeleine Albright: -- call out what it is. >> David M. Rubenstein: All right. So well, let's talk about doing something. You are a former secretary of state. What do you do now? Do you teach? Are you writing books? What are you doing at NDI? What is your main activities now? >> Madeleine Albright: A little bit of every -- you know, there are people who think I'm crazy, but the bottom line is I do things that I think fit together. I do teach. I teach at Georgetown. And I say foreign policy is just trying to get some country to do what you want. That's all it is. So what are the tools? So my course is called the National Security Toolbox. I am chairman of the board of the National Democratic Institute. That is, you can't impose democracy. You have to support it where you can. I do write books. I give speeches. I have a global consulting -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: -- firm, and I try to kind of -- one thing leads to another. I do a variety of task forces, and I try very hard in everything I do to do bipartisan activity. I have spent a lot of time with Steve Hadley doing a big study on the Middle East. We are doing something now together at the US Institute of Peace in terms of looking at extremism. So I try to -- one thing informs another, but my to-do list, and I am doing more and more on my to-do list -- one is to make very clear about the importance of respect for our institutional system and our constitution. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: To make clear that nobody is above the law. [ Applause ] >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. >> Madeleine Albright: Yeah. That the press is essential, and then I am saying that people need to either run for office or support those people who are, and then something that is actually really difficult, which is to talk with people that I disagree with. Now I'm sorry to say to all of you that are Washingtonians I listen to right-wing radio as I drive and do a lot of yelling and hand gestures, and so it may not be safest to be around me, but the bottom line is I think we need to understand. I don't like the word "tolerance." That means put up with. I think we need to respect the views of those that we disagree with and talk about try to figure out what it's about. >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. >> Madeleine Albright: And then every book or speech that I've ever read quotes Robert Frost, and my favorite quote is -- "The older I get, the younger are my teachers" is what he said, and I think we need to get the young people mobilized, those kids that marched after -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Yeah. >> Madeleine Albright: -- Parkland, so that's kind of my to-do list. >> David M. Rubenstein: Well, that's a lot of things. So if you look back on your incredible career, if you could say the two final questions. One, what is the difference between the way men run countries and women run countries? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, they are not a lot of women that are running countries, but the bottom line is I think that actually men and women do have different approaches, I think in terms of I think women are better at peripheral vision, because we have to multitask. I think men think kind of more concentrated deeper. These are generalizations, but -- and I think that there's an attempt to kind of find some compromise, that compromise is not a four-letter word, but I honestly believe this. I don't think the world should be run only by women, and if you think that, you've forgotten high school. I think that what is important is to get men and women working together -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay. >> Madeleine Albright: -- and using the various skills that we have. >> David M. Rubenstein: So of all the things you've done in your incredible career, what would you say you're most proud of your achievement, having done? Is it being secretary of state and what you did as secretary of state, as a teacher? What would you say you're most proud of having achieved? >> Madeleine Albright: Well, I have to say obviously my children and grandchildren. >> David M. Rubenstein: You have three daughters. >> Madeleine Albright: I have three daughters and six grandchildren, and I do think that, you know, we all kid that working hard is kind of a family trait, so I'm very proud of that, but I think that what I'm proudest of is that I'm a grateful American. I describe myself as a grateful American, and I am proud when I'm able to kind of be able to work with others to show what America can and should do. What I regret most of all is that I never ran for office, and so what I try to do is to motivate people to do that. I love politics, I love our system, and I really do think that what I'm best at at the moment is telling it like it is. I have had a very lucky life. I know you're not supposed to say that, but I have had a lucky life, and coming to America is what made all the difference, and I'm a refugee, and one of the things that I really am proud of and I love to do is to go and give naturalization certificates at the ceremonies, and -- >> David M. Rubenstein: Well, speaking of -- >> Madeleine Albright: -- the first time I did that was on July 4th, 2000 at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, and I figured since I had his job, I could do that. >> David M. Rubenstein: Right. >> Madeleine Albright: And so I gave somebody a naturalization certificate, and I all of a sudden heard this man say can you believe it? I'm a refugee, and I just got my naturalization certificate from the secretary of state, and I went up to him and I said can you believe that a refugee is secretary of state? And that is what America is about. >> David M. Rubenstein: Well put. [ Applause and Cheering ] Well, so thank you very much. Great. >> Madeleine Albright: Thanks, David. >> David M. Rubenstein: Can't talk now. Thank you. >> Madeleine Albright: Okay. Thank you! Thank you all. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay. >> Madeleine Albright: Thank you. >> So that's the [inaudible]. >> David M. Rubenstein: Okay.
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Channel: Library of Congress
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Length: 66min 3sec (3963 seconds)
Published: Mon Oct 15 2018
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